Two oils by Paul Henry included in an art sale next Tuesday evening are notable for showing the stylistic differences in the painter's career. One of the pictures, to be sold by De Vere's at the RHA Gallagher Gallery, dates from Henry's time on Achill Island, while the other is quite clearly from a later period when he had begun to produce landscape views devoid of human figures. This is in sharp contrast to the paintings produced during his seven years on Achill Island. As is well-known, Henry and his wife, Grace, moved to the island in 1912 and there he began to chronicle the hard life of the local population. The work being sold by De Vere's on Tuesday - lot 26, called A Grey Evening, Achill - is typical of this period. Dr Brian Kennedy, who has written a note on the picture for the auction catalogue, dates it to 1917-1919 (that is, during Henry's final years in the west) on stylistic grounds.
Showing a solitary fisherman at sea with his lobster pots, the canvas has been covered with only the lightest layer of paint so that the white beneath can still be faintly discerned. Dr Kennedy refers to the strong horizontal skyline which decisively divides the painting into two sections linked by the body of the fisherman; the low grey sky which is so common in this country is a persistent feature of Paul Henry's work, both early and late. Because such pictures by the artist which include the human figure are comparatively rare, the estimate for this painting - £60,000-£80,000 is much higher than for the other Henry work offered in the same sale. Called The Thatched Cottage, lot 43 is expected to fetch £15,000-£18,000.
In part, this is due to it being less than half the size of the previous work, measuring a mere seven- and-a-half inches by nine-and-a-half inches. But it is also painted in the style for which Henry is best known. This involves the application of thick impasto on board, a scene bereft of figures and the depiction of white-washed cottages beneath a looming sky. As Dr Kennedy remarks in another catalogue note, "this composition is similar to a number of pictures Paul Henry painted in the mid-1920s", adding that "such pieces had a ready commercial appeal". They still do. What Dr Kennedy describes as the "post-Impressionist influence on his compositional technique", gives work of this kind an immediate attraction which has never ceased to attract collectors since Henry began producing work of this kind some 70 years ago. References to post-Impressionism provide a link with another picture being offered for sale by De Vere's, this time painted by Ireland's arch exponent of the style, Roderic O'Conor. Yet curiously, lot 64 Femme au Corsage Mauve (£15,000-£20,000) is representative of O'Conor at his most academic, being extremely formal and restrained and working within what is, for this artist, a distinctly muted palette, in which tones of blue and grey predominate.
The more brilliant reds which O'Conor so often employed are here used only for the chair on which the (unidentified) model sits gazing to the right.
Other Irish artists also in this sale include Gerard Dillon, Evie Hone and Harry Kernoff.
A Grey Evening, Achill by Paul Henry which is expected to fetch £60,000-£80,000 at the De Vere's art sale next Tuesday
